secret history of a food that everybody loves

The argument depends on the differences between how grains and tubers are grown. Crops like wheat are harvested once or twice a year, yielding piles of small, dry grains. These can be stored for long periods of time and are easily transported — or stolen.

Root crops, on the other hand, don't store well at all. They're heavy, full of water, and rot quickly once taken out of the ground. Yuca, for instance, grows year-round and in ancient times, people only dug it up right before it was eaten. This provided some protection against theft in ancient times. It's hard for bandits to make off with your harvest when most of it is in the ground, instead of stockpiled in a granary somewhere.

But the fact that grains posed a security risk may have been a blessing in disguise. The economists believe that societies cultivating crops like wheat and barley may have experienced extra pressure to protect their harvests, galvanizing the creation of warrior classes and the development of complex hierarchies and taxation schemes.

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food architecture - geometries

Architecture of Food  -

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Hidden Kitchen

[Hidden kitchen 2014]is a portable restaurant which is designed as a backpack. This idea from the time when the artist hung around across the country, he packs all the stuff in an one bag. This project devised to go to backwoods where is the Mokyon-pocha could't go.

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climate change = food issue

"The causality around food security and climate stressors runs in both directions—food insecurity can contribute to instability and violence, just as surely as instability and violence can lead to food insecurity. In Syria, both are true. Between 2006 and 2011, more than 60 percent of Syrian territory endured the worst long-term drought in recorded history. The country’s total water resources were cut in half, with disastrous implications for rural areas. The primary northeastern wheat-growing region suffered 75 percent crop failure and 85 percent losses in livestock. The United Nations estimated that 800,000 Syrians lost their livelihood as a result of these droughts: 1 million Syrians were declared food insecure, and 3 million were driven into extreme poverty. This profound climate and food crisis led to large-scale migration: In 2010 alone, 50,000 Syrian families moved to cities from rural areas and, in 2011, an estimated 200,000 rural Syrians left rural areas for cities. Syria’s urban centers were ill-equipped to deal with this influx, with poor infrastructure and their own endemic water shortages and high levels of unemployment.

The disaffection with the government—which was unable to respond effectively to the social and health needs of migrants—brought diverse ethnic and religious groups into close contact under trying circumstances and contributed to the protests which, following President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal repression, morphed into civil war. Climate change and food insecurity did not by themselves cause the rebellion, but they contributed to the circumstances that gave rise to it. And similar stressors will likely drive the next major upheaval, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere."

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floating forest

Looking for a new way to obtain fresh produce? This floating urban forest has your back. Swale, a barge topped with a forest of trees and edible plants, will be docking in Brooklyn, Governors Island and the Bronx this June.

The 80 feet by 30 feet barge and collaborative floating food project will let people on board harvest scallions, rosemary, blueberries, wild leek, radicchio, ramps, sea kale and other fresh produce.

Mary Mattingly, the artist behind the project, told Brooklyn Based via email...

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When local ain't that local

Laura Reiley, the food critic at the Tampa Bay Times, recently delivered a riveting two-part series called “Farm to Fable” that hones in on the specious claims of “local food” at restaurants and farmers markets. She took samples from restaurants that were celebrated for their seasonal menus, and submitted them to scientists for testing, and she visited the small farms that many restaurants claimed, in pretty chalkboard lettering, to be partnering with. “Fiction started seeming like the daily special,” she found.

At farmers markets, Reiley discovered that actual farmers — as opposed to resellers — tend to be few and far between. In the Tampa Bay area, after several weeks of visiting markets, she counted 346 vendors, many of them selling in several different markets. “Of that number,” she wrote, “only 16 sold their own produce, honey, eggs, meat or dairy. Plenty of wind chimes and hot sauces, but less than 5 percent represented Florida farmers growing their own food.” In fact, the colorful fruits, vegetables and leafy greens on display typically come from “Mexico, Honduras, Canada,” and represent the glut of food that local grocers have already passed over.

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The Chinese Take out box

When you order Chinese delivery, do you ever stop to look at the takeout box? That white container adorned with red pagodas is one of the most iconic boxes around. But did you know that it's actually an American design? In fact, you probably won't even find these boxes in China.

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mid century mod foods

There is no mystery for me in the almost cultlike enthusiasm for midcentury modern architecture and design. Whether it’s a Bakelite bracelet or a Barcelona chair, there is absolutely no denying the perfect harmony of 20th century technology and art. It doesn’t matter if it’s cars, toasters, apartment buildings, couches … it’s impossible not to appreciate the vision, if not to covet the object.

The same cannot be said for midcentury cuisine. It looks bad, tastes worse, and consumed over decades surely must kill you. Whoever first decided that food and technology were meant to comingle and produce offspring was delusional. Maybe evil...

Kurt Cyr, a Palm Springs renaissance man who has not only garnered a reputation for his modernism tours and popular lecture series/social gathering, Salon of the Parched, became fascinated several years ago with the question of why people who love midcentury architecture revile the food. His discoveries resulted in ModEats, a demonstration/cooking series he put on at the Saguaro Hotel. “If we are going to talk seriously about midcentury food, the spectacle of kitsch draws the focus away from one important factor that we take for granted today,” he says, “[And that is] the revolutionary discoveries of food science during this period.”

In fact, Cyr believes the work of world-renowned chefs such as Ferran Adrià of elBulli, would not have been possible without the trailblazing work of the mad food scientists at General Foods or Nabisco. “Molecular gastronomy is definitely the grandchild of the food science discoveries of the 1950s,” Cyr says, pointing out that the balsamic vinegar pearls that top modern deconstructed Caprese salads would not be possible without the invention of … Jell-O.,,,

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